The weatherman and global warming

Mark Twain is credited with saying, “Climate lasts all the time, weather only a few days.” A new study finds that the day’s weather can influence people’s belief that global climate change is real, Jeanna Bryner reports at LiveScience.”

Researchers at Columbia Business School’s Center for Decision Sciences surveyed participants in the United States and Australia, asking if they believed “that global warming is happening” and whether they worried about it. They also asked if the respondent thought the day’s weather was colder or warmer than usual. People who thought the day’s weather was warmer than usual were more likely to agree that global warming is real and to be concerned about it. They also were more than twice as likely to agree to donate money to combat climate change than those who thought the day’s weather was cooler than normal.

Ye Li, the study’s lead researcher, said making a decision about global warming based on the weather on any given day is like looking in your wallet to judge how well the economy is doing.